1. What are the challenges facing Canada on economic management and environmental protection?

I’m a British Columbian, so the question of balancing economic growth and environmental protection has been part of the public policy landscape for my entire life. Whether it’s the preservation of the fisheries, and of course that’s an east coast issue as well with the cod. But particularly with the forest industry – the concern about old-growth forest, particularly as we have come to understand more and more about climate change. The concern about protecting the carbon sink that is made up of our forests. So it’s an issue that is a tough one for Canada. If we had no resources, it wouldn’t be a problem. We have minerals in British Columbia as well. And mining is an environmentally often-unfriendly process. And yet we all use products that take advantage of these minerals.

Now, of course, with the growth of the tar sands industry in Alberta, when I was a young woman, the tar sands were not economically viable to exploit. Now they are. And the growing concern about the strategic element of providing fossil fuels to a big market like the United States. I mean, what does it mean if the United States is dependent on non-democratic Middle Eastern regimes, for example? What does it mean to buy oil from Iraq, from Venezuela, and even from Saudi Arabia, whose Wahabi missionaries are spreading a form of Islam that is not very hospitable to its big markets?

So these are big issues that we have to deal with. I think there was a period of time, certainly when the current Canadian government felt philosophically comfortable with the George Bush administration which seemed to be in denial about issues like climate change. I think that’s changing, not only with the change of administration of the United States, but even with people. There was the scientist that was hired by the infamous Koch brothers (American free-marketers) to make the case that global warming was a hoax. And he said, ‘I hate to say it, but it’s real and the cause is human activity.’ So we’re going to have a tough time with this. And on the one hand, the pressure forces us to look for environmentally friendlier technologies.

But I think what Canada needs to do is to have a strategy to use as much as possible the resources from those technologies — particularly when it comes to energy because energy is the foundation of everything — that are not going to be sustainable in the long run if we care about the planet. To invest in alternatives.

Obviously wind and solar are part of it, but other things as well. We have hydro-electric power. Again, in British Columbia, hydro is controversial. And yet when you weigh it off against the other possibilities, it isn’t.

Somebody I know suggested that given the challenge for the threat to water resources that come from exploiting the tar sands, that maybe that’s a place where it’s geologically very stable where we could use Canadian nuclear technology to power that resource development with a very well supervised nuclear capacity, which Canada has, to avoid some of the other things.

It’s going to need some serious tradeoffs, some serious investments. But it’s a challenge that we’ve always faced. The American author, Richard Rodriguez, wrote a column a number of years ago in Harper’s (magazine) about why people on the west coast were so much more environmentally sensitive, both in Canada and the United States. And his argument was: in the European settlement of North America, we started in the east but as we despoiled the environment we just kept moving west to fresher and fresher places. And by the time we got to the west coast, there was no place else to go. And we had to turn back and think more seriously about what we were doing to the land.

Because what people forget is that we destroyed the wonderful pine forests of the Maritimes. I mean, in the early days of European settlement, that’s what people wanted to get for the timbers and masts for the shipping fleets that were going around the world in the early days of globalization.

So I think the challenge for us is to make tough decisions but also not to put our head in the sand. Not to pretend that the issue doesn’t exist. And that’s what worries me. It does exist, and we’re part of it, but we can be part of the solution.

It’s going to be on the public policy agenda for a long time and we need to talk about it openly and honestly and also engage the Americans in talking about the extent to which whatever they think about Canadians’ resources, it doesn’t come with a political price tag. And maybe there are short-term compromises you make for strategic interests, while at the same time knowing you are dealing with a partner with the same values, the same legal protections. And a partner that is committed to addressing the negative impact of its industries.

2. What is the state of the political system and how can public participation be enhanced?

I do a lot of work around the world in the promotion of democracy. I was just on a call with the Centre for Pluralism in Ottawa who are going to Kyrgyzstan, where I was recently. We are sharing ideas. I’m a former Soviet specialist so I do a lot of work in that part of the world, whether it was in central Asia, I did work in Ukraine. I have become very aware of what an extraordinary winning of the global lottery it was for me to have elected office in a country like Canada, where we have not only free and fair elections, but also skilled public servants at all levels of government. Because one of the big lacks that countries have that are not from a democratic tradition is the people.

In the United States, the top levels are political appointees or they do have a permanent career public service. But the people who now have to take ideas and visions and translate them into workable programs and deliverable services — this is a big challenge. So if I look at the big picture, the global challenge of making democracies work, I would say Canada is in great shape.

But I said this 20 years ago before we had the kind of technologies that we have now. That there’s never a day that you can go to bed and pull the covers over your head and ‘It’s all good, the problems are going to work out fine.’ Because democratic governance constantly faces new challenges.

Today we face the challenge of globalization, not only the extent to which policies are not made in our own country. The extent to which we have to collaborate and co-ordinate with other countries in order to get the benefit — and there are big benefits for Canada — of global trade, global communication, etc. But also because of the very nature of the way that our citizens communicate — the way they see themselves, the way they identify, has been transformed dramatically since I held elected office in Canada. By the Internet, by social media, etc.

And so for political leaders this presents a huge challenge. I still believe that democracy, like (Winston) Churchill said, is the worst form of government except for all the others. It’s a huge challenge. And I think we have to find ways of keeping what is really of value — and not saying everything we ever did is not of value — but understanding that we are more visible than we used to be. That’s both good and bad. It was (German statesman Otto Von) Bismarck who said laws are like sausages. It’s better not to see how they are made.

We’re more visible, we’re more transparent, there’s less secrecy, there’s less privacy. And at the same time, I think a lot of social media has also turned young people inward as well as outward.

I don’t have a short answer to what is the state of the political system. I think it’s as always, under-challenged. Under-challenged by things that are very difficult to predict and the challenges are for politicians to understand what the fundamental basis of a democracy is. Which is to govern in the national interest. To, as much as possible, consult. To share ideas. To have the courage to take decisions and to stand by them.

I think also, we have had a dramatic challenge to politicians in communications over the last 40 years. The days when a newspaper was read and could publish half a page of an excerpt from a politician’s speech — and that people would read it and decide if they agree or disagree. When the sound bite on television was maybe a minute and a half to three minutes as opposed to 10 seconds. You know, politicians have a real challenge now in communicating.

In the United States the media is very polarized. So again, there is no common ground where left and right come together to duke it out. We don’t have that in Canada now. I think we still have a reasonably broadly based media structure where people who turn on whatever channel it is are likely to hear conflicting views and have a chance to see what are the alternative positions in different parties.

But I think that the very things that make it possible for politicians to consult, to hear the voices of those they represent, also challenge them in communicating in meaningful ways. And at the end of the day, democracy matters. I’m not cynical about it, because to me that’s such a self-defeating exercise. But it’s always a challenge.

It’s been a challenge since the days that people were struggling to broaden the franchise, and it’s a challenge today. So I think of all countries in the world, Canada is well positioned to meet those challenges. But they are there and we have to understand them and address them.

3. What is the state of national unity and how can we foster Canadian cohesiveness?

When we talk about national unity in Canada, it’s important to understand that it exists at several different levels. Again, if we look structurally at Canada, there is an enormous amount of integration, collaboration, co-operation at the officials’ levels.

Even among politicians. Now, there’s not as much federal-provincial interaction as there was when I was in public life. In fact, my goal, had I been re-elected as prime minister, would be to continue it. I was the first prime minister to actually call a first ministers’ meeting before going to the G7. And I wanted that to be a motif of my administration because, not only was I the first woman prime minister of Canada but I think I was the first prime minister to have elected office at all three levels of government. So my perspective on what the provinces do and the importance of what they do and local governments, was perhaps a little different from that of others who had held that office.

And I understood, as a British Columbian, the aggravation that people have at the provincial level when the federal government tries to make policy in areas of jurisdiction that are not theirs. And for which they don’t deliver the policies, don’t design them, and have no responsibilities. So I wanted to create a better collaboration. I think there are times when the federal government has to lead, and I think it has the power to lead when it needs to. But co-operation is more important. And whatever the rhetoric that goes on in a Quebec election, for example, with the Parti Quebecois or whatever – in any given day, officials from all the provinces and territories in Canada are working, are meeting and communicating to do the work that they do.

I think one of the problems that we have in Canada, and I felt this very much going back to my days when I held elected office, is that we sometimes think we are the only country that has these issues. You know, 90 per cent of the countries in the world have minorities of more than 10 per cent. Learning to live with difference is the norm, not the exception. And Canada actually does it remarkably well. But it doesn’t happen automatically. You have to devote resources to it.

Roza Otunbayeva, who was the interim president of Kyrgyzstan before their last election, was in Ottawa recently. And they have ethnic divisions between the Uzbek majority in the south and the Kyrgyz majority. And they have a Kyrgyz language that they want to protect because it’s under threat, nobody else speaks it. Very similar issues to what we have faced in Canada. The French language isn’t under threat globally but in North America it has basically Canada as its protector. In Quebec, in New Brunswick and in the smaller communities across the country. And she was astonished to see the amount of resources and the structures and institutions that we have created to enable us to live with that kind of diversity.

And I think it’s naïve to think it’s just going to happen. You have to devote those resources. Similarly, because we take so many immigrants, we need to devote resources to acculturating and assimilating our immigrants. It doesn’t happen automatically when you have the proportions that we have in terms of the population.

But I also think it’s important to understand that national unity doesn’t necessarily mean that we all have to like each other. What it does mean is that we have to respect each other. In a way, it’s sad that we have such a dynamic French culture in Quebec — cinema, music, writers — that those in the rest of Canada who don’t have access to the French language often don’t share that fan base. There are some, but it is a pity. There are artists like Celine Dion who perform in both languages so each community thinks it owns her.

But I think what we have to do is be realistic about what national unity means. What national unity means is making this large country, with its differences, work. For every person, and that every person has full protection of their rights. It helps if we know each other.

When I was prime minister, I created the department of Canadian Heritage to try and maximize the use of the powers that the federal government has — for commemoration, some ability to fund post-secondary education, although education is a provincial jurisdiction. And we teach our history very differently at the different provinces of Canada. But without breaching the constitution, I wanted to maximize the ability of the government of Canada to create a kind of shared narrative of our country and our history using what powers it has.

As a British Columbian growing up in Vancouver, I think my sense of the country, to a large degree, came from the CBC. I do believe in a national broadcaster that will do things that aren’t necessarily market-viable but in terms of our national interests are very important. That I grew up listening to (CBC radio host) Peter Gzowski, who talked to people in Quebec, who talked to people in the Maritimes and the prairies, and feeling that my country was a neighborhood. And that is a challenge, and I think we need to devote resources to that.

But at the end of the day, it is the structures — the laws, the institutions that protect us. Even equalization, which as a former British Columbia premier said is a way of taking money from taxpayers’ pockets and putting it in the hands of other governments. He wasn’t so enthusiastic about it. But the idea that there should be some basic foundational level of services I think is a good one. Whether it functions as well as it should is an issue that will be a constant, ongoing source of political discussion.

So again, the short term is there are always threats to national unity. There are always people who, for a variety of reasons — perhaps legitimate grievances. One, the desire to be a big fish in the small pond. I have carefully avoided the big frog in the small puddle for fear of being politically incorrect.

But I mean whether it’s western separatism, you know we had that as well. Where people said we can go better alone. I think that we need to have a commitment that that isn’t the case. That it doesn’t mean that we have to live in each other’s pockets. What it means is that we have to share our strengths to make sure that we can all live in a functioning, thriving democracy with a prosperous economy.

So I think that we’re as well positioned to do that as anybody. Even in the United States you’re getting southerners saying maybe the Civil War got it wrong and blah, blah. So you’re always in times of crisis going to have these tensions. But the idea is to understand we don’t have to love each other. Many of us do love each other. But we need to try and know each other to understand who we live with, and respect them. Respect the differences and get on with our lives.

4. How well is the Canadian health care system functioning and does it need significant reform?

I don’t live in Canada all the time now but if you read the metrics of life expectancy, infant mortality, success in fighting serious diseases, the Canadian health-care system works very well. I spend a lot of time in France, a lot of time in the United States. One of the things you can see about public health-care systems, wherever they are in the world, they each build on their own social and institutional histories. I mean, the French system is not like the British system, which is not like the Canadian system, which is not like the German system. But they all provide pretty good health care to their citizens.

Part of the problem we have in Canada is that for a long time there has been a certain political correctness around the issue of our health-care system — whether it functions as it should, whether there are better ways of doing things. We have various commissions that try to throw that off and look at it practically. Sure, I think there could be a lot of changes.

I must say that until I went to the United States, I never knew what it meant to be worried about getting sick. As I explain to Americans, I think in Canada people think it’s just morally unacceptable for anyone to be impoverished by illness, to be bankrupted. There are other ways you can be left worse off by illness. If you have to close your business down, or whatever — your health-care plan doesn’t help that. But the notion that you couldn’t get the care you need is just really, in most industrialized societies, unacceptable. How they approach that varies from place to place.

And I am quite happy to see us looking at different ways. There’s always this question: How do you keep people from over-using the system? We know that the cost of health care isn’t a function of the number of patients. It’s a function of the number of doctors. My home, here in Vancouver, British Columbia has always been over-doctored because it’s a place that people want to live. Southern California has the same problem. Desirable places to live attract doctors and it’s not that they’re trying to rip off the system. But the more doctors you have, the more medical care you will have.

So, yeah, these things have to be talked about and they should be talked about openly and without fear. But with the commitment that we will never go back to a time when any Canadian has to worry that illness will bankrupt them. That they won’t be able to get the care they need. And that as a society we believe that it’s not your fault. Now, if you smoke, if you drink too much there are things you can do. You play extreme sports. There a lot of things you can do that maybe raise your risks and we need to try and help people solve that.

For example, my parents were of the wartime generation. Now, they both did quit smoking. But people were encouraged to smoke. So people came back from the war, soldiers were encouraged to smoke to help keep them alert. There were things that my mother did in the navy. They encouraged them to smoke to keep them alert on watches. So, you know, you can’t run around necessarily pointing your fingers at people. You have to help people avoid those decisions and just understand that we’re in it together and we need to help one another stay healthy. Because at the end of the day, it’s good for all of us. If people are healthy, they can go to work, pay their taxes, support my pension. You know?

5. How is Canada positioned as a player on the world stage, and is the country’s relationship with the United States in good shape?

The question you ask me about foreign policy is a hard one to answer. You know, sometimes I feel that Canada is not as visible as I would like it to be. It drives me nuts when I see articles that refer to the United States and countries that are working with it — whether it’s in Afghanistan or something — and no mention of Canada. It drives me bonkers. It brings out the homicidal maniac in me. Mild-mannered, non-violent Canadian gets very upset. And yet there are other times when I go places and I find that Canada has a very nice profile. That the Canadian government has been doing useful things.

I would say today we have pulled back a little from our effort to be serious players, and I’d like to see us do more. Again, I remember when I was running for the leadership. I gave a big foreign policy speech here in Vancouver and all the people wanted to hear about was the deficit. They didn’t want to hear about that. But I thought it was important to state my vision of what I think the country should be. And it hasn’t really changed much. Again, what I said was we’re not a great power, but we’re a major power. And we are a rich country and we really need to be a player.

We will always have trouble getting out from under the shadow of the United States. Because, you know, it’s a great big fat superpower, and not the only one. China is maybe vying for it but China’s economic strength per capita is 20 per cent of the United States. The United States is our major market but it’s also the big 900-pound gorilla in the room for the world.

That notwithstanding, I think we need to have a position, have a voice. Because we need to protect our own interests. But that also means that we may have to take some tough decisions about some of the issues where we are not seen as being on the side of the angels. And if we think we have a story to tell, then we have to tell it. And if we are not on the side of the angels, we need to think about how to get there. Because at the end of the day, it is helpful for Canadians. Even Canadians who never leave the country for Canada to count on the world stage.

6. In your view, what is the single greatest challenge and single greatest opportunity facing Canada today, and as it heads towards its 150th anniversary?

I think the challenges that face the world today are challenges that need to be met with brainpower, with innovation, with creativity. And Canada is wonderfully well positioned to do that. I have an old law-school classmate who sends me bits of information. He collects these reports about weighting Canada’s universities, for example. And my alma mater, University of British Columbia, is now way up there. Not just in North America but in global rankings. The University of Alberta, which has just grown dramatically. You know, we have a good public education system, which we need to preserve. That is fundamental.

I was very lucky to go to school in an age when we took everything — and not just in science and math, art and music and physical education. We know that exercise is very important to help kids learn and increase their brainpower. So I was very lucky, the public schooling that I had in Canada. And I think we need to focus on ensuring that kids have that. But we’ve got research institutions. We need to invest in them more.

I said 20 years ago we need to commercialize our own innovation. We’re still not doing that enough. We need to find ways of pouring money into what we innovate so that we can develop it here in Canada. But in terms of the issues that face the world that need to be resolved to ensure peace, prosperity, the livability of the world, Canada has as much resource as anybody to make a contribution to that. Which is both positive economically. You can earn good livings for our people, and earn us respect.

We need to rise to the challenge. It’s not going to happen automatically. Just like democracy, it doesn’t function on autopilot. You’ve got to make the decisions and you’ve got to invest in the programs and policies that make it happen — both privately and publicly.

But I’m always bullish on Canada. I’m a true Canadian. I’m a cautious optimist. Because like all Canadians, I know what it means to have disappointments — like our poor guy in the Olympics who put his foot on the line. Aww! What’s that all about? What a heartbreak.

So Canadians know heartbreak, but they also live in a peaceable kingdom and I am consciously aware as I spend time outside of the country how Canadian I am. And I try to be an ambassador for Canadian values and for a Canadian sense of possibility. I think we do believe in possibilities. And sometimes we have to kind of blow our own horn because nobody is listening, we’re at the back row of the orchestra. But it’s a wonderful country, full of wonderful people.

If we keep that sense of possibility and our own capacity to do wonderful things, I think Canada will continue to be a key player in making the world a better place. One hundred fiftieth anniversary? Will I be alive? When is 150? Yeah, I will be. I was around for 100, not too elderly. So I think we have a lot to look forward to. I’m going to keep my health up, so I can be there to cheer.

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